91: Fulfill My Calling or Live in My Calling?

For much of my life, I wanted to fulfill my calling.

God had given me certain abilities and opportunities. I felt responsible for using them well.

So I worked.

I set goals. I accepted challenges. I tried to develop whatever gifts I had been given. When a door opened, I walked through it. When there was an obstacle, I tried to overcome it.

There was genuine purpose in this way of living.

But recently, I have begun wondering about one word.

Fulfill.

To fulfill something means that there is something to accomplish.

A destination.

A task.

A responsibility that eventually needs to be completed.

Without realizing it, perhaps I had gradually turned my calling into something like this:

Calling → mission → goals → effort → achievement → contribution

Then naturally came measurement.

Am I doing enough?

Am I using my abilities fully?

How much am I contributing?

How many people am I helping?

Am I wasting what God has given me?

Even calling can quietly become another form of striving.

Recently, another phrase came to me:

What if I do not need to fulfill my calling?

What if I simply live in my calling?

The difference sounds small, but to me it feels enormous.

If I need to fulfill my calling, the calling is somewhere ahead of me. I have to move toward it.

If I live in my calling, I am already inside it.

Then the question changes.

Instead of:

What must I accomplish with my life?

I can ask:

How should I live today?

Perhaps my deepest calling is much simpler than I made it.

Receive God’s love.

Allow that love to change me.

Give it to the people around me.

If that is my calling, I can live it almost anywhere.

I can live it while doing difficult work.

I can live it while encouraging someone.

But I can also live it while eating with my family.

Even while accomplishing very little.

This changes how I see outcomes too.

A grant may be funded or rejected.

A professional role may become larger or smaller.

These things still matter, but perhaps they are results of living, not measurements of whether my calling was fulfilled.

That feels freeing.

An institution cannot take away my calling.

A title cannot give it to me.

A closed door cannot end it.

Aging cannot make it obsolete.

Even if one day I can no longer do many of the things that once defined my contribution, I can still live inside my calling.

Perhaps this is also why small moments are becoming more important to me.

If calling is something to fulfill, I naturally look for significant impact.

If calling is something to live, one moment can be enough.

One person.

One conversation.

One act of kindness.

One ordinary evening with my family.

For much of my life, I tried to use everything God gave me to fulfill my calling.

I am grateful for that season.

But perhaps the next season is simpler.

Receive God’s love.

Give it to whoever is in front of me.

Do faithfully what is mine to do.

Release the outcome.

I do not need to finish my calling.

I simply need to live in it.

Today.

And tomorrow, live in it again.